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‘Unbuilding’: What might happen if dams are removed in the Ohio River watershed
By Julie Grant The Ohio River watershed is dotted with thousands of small dams. Many are remnants of bygone days of grain mills and the steel industry, which used dams to pool water needed during production. The dams are no longer needed. And, because they can be a safety hazard to boats and a barrier…
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Toxic Mercury Remediation in the Ohio River Hampered by Complicated Cleanup
By Jeff Brooks-Gillies Mercury flows through industrial wastewater into the Ohio River, and damages young brains. But the multi-state agency tasked with keeping the waterway clean hasn’t tightened controls on this pollution because it doesn’t have the authority to do so. While coal-fired power plants, chemical manufacturers and other facilities along the Ohio River are…
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Toxic Discharge Data Shows Where Pollutants Leach into the Ohio River, but Enforcement Remains an Issue (With Interactive Map)
By Bonnie Jean Feldkamp All Tim Guilfoile wants to do is fish. Before his retirement, he had two careers: one in business and one in water quality activism. Now, he serves as the director of marketing and communications for Northern Kentucky Fly Fishers. “We fly fish for bass, blue gill, striped bass and others. Not…
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Ohio River rises: The minds behind Louisville’s riverfront revival
By Ryan Van Velzer In Louisville, Kentucky, the Ohio River has something of an image problem. It seems like everything imaginable has ended up in the river at one time or another. There are the usual suspects like plastic bottles, Styrofoam coolers and tires. There are the byproducts of cities and industries: sewage, landfill juice…
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Behind 'Dark Waters'- the lasting legacy of C8 contamination in the Ohio River Watershed
By Taylor Sisk PARKERSBURG, W. Va. – Tommy Joyce is no cinephile. The last movie he saw in a theater was the remake of “True Grit” nearly a decade ago. “I’d rather watch squirrels run in the woods” than sit through most of what appears on the big screen, he said. But there’s a film…
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Rising waters: Aging levees, climate change and the challenge to hold back the Ohio River
By Liam Niemeyer When 78-year-old Jim Casto looks at the towering floodwalls that line downtown Huntington, West Virginia, he sees a dark history of generations past. The longtime journalist and local historian is short in stature, yet tall in neighborhood tales. On Casto’s hand shines a solid gold ring, signifying his more than 40 years…
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Fighting pollution and apathy on the Lower Ohio
By Jeff Brooks-Gillies When Jason Flickner was a kid, he built a dam on the creek behind his grandparents’ house causing it to flood a neighbor’s basement. When he tells the story now — at 45 and living in the same house — he says his dam was a violation of the federal Clean Water…
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360-degree video interactive: A journey to revitalization on an Ohio River tributary
By Jeffrey Boggess, Ariel Cifala, Bijan Fandey, Shae McClain and Mark Schoenster The Cheat River courses through one of the largest undammed watersheds in the eastern United States. The river forms from tributaries high in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia and flows northward to meet with the Monongahela River just before crossing into…
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The water is cleaner but the politics are messier: A look back at the Clean Water Act movement after 50 years
This is first in our Good River: Stories of the Ohio Series By Lucia Walinchus In June 1969, a Time Magazine article garnered national attention when it brought to light the water quality conditions in Ohio: a river had literally caught fire. Oil-soaked debris ignited after sparks, likely from a passing train, set the slick…